Remember how the world was “supposed” to end last month…but we’re still here? Well, something worse is actually happening to LA this weekend. It’s Carmageddon. That’s right, this weekend the already congested 405 freeway will close some of its sections on the Westside for infrastructure improvements. Pity the poor souls who booked their vacations months ago and who will now get the real taste of living with traffic in LA.
It’s a good time to not be in LA, or if you are already here, to find a way to stay in. I think it’s a great excuse to not go shopping this weekend and just play in my closet instead. So starting with today’s entry I’ll be posting an outfit a day with some recent finds.
In this matchy-matchy ensemble with the Chanel slides I recently scored, I’m featuring the beige claire jumbo flap and a matte pailletes tank I got from JCrew last week during their summer sale. I love anything with black and beige almost as much as black and white. I’ll be wearing this outfit with my skinny capri jeans to dinner.
Tags: 405, Carmageddon, Chanel, JCrew
All right, so I’ve read all your comments and held the skirt then shoes up against all my shirts and sweaters and think I can either do something funky with the color or the pattern, but not both at the same time. Professional stylists are very clever with mixing both colors and patterns but I still have to stay true to what I could realistically wear outside of my closet. So here are a few options I’ve pulled together so far…
Look 1: a very safe option with the crinkled gray embellished cotton shirt from JCrew. It’s a no brainer and I like the funky beading along the shirt placket, but it’s not going to win any award for imagination:
Look 2: I thought, well, what if I added something burgundy over Look 1 to play off the burgundy in the shoes? And what if this burgundy item were tweeded and fringed (and sometimes makes me feel like the Michelin Man on my bloated days) to give it yet another layer of texture? Too much mixing of patterns perhaps? Chanel overdrive, you say?
Look 3: Then I reached for more gray stuff, like this fringed t-shirt from last summer…kinda nutty with a totally different type of pattern in the shirt’s tweed fringe, right?
Look 4: When I’m uncomfortable with a color or pattern I have a habit of throwing a solid cardigan over what’s ailing me and pray it all works out. So to temper the mixing of patterns in Look 3, I add a dark gray Prada cardigan over it (no sleeveless look for me till I get back to my workout routine!)…but it’s really a dowdy look:
Look 5: But what if I went with a lighter shade of gray like in this JCrew cardi instead?
Yeah, still dowdy. Gray is gorgeous but it can totally un-cool you.
Look 6: Then I thought, what if I went all casual and wore a GAP chambray button down with it? I’d let my pearl lariat necklace dress it up a bit:
Look 7: In this final attempt, I’m trying to take your advice about color. You’d mentioned blush, green, yellow, aqua and I love all the suggestions with a checked skirt. I’m just scared to mix colors with a patterned skirt! So this is me being bold with one pop of color while keeping everything else toned down:
I’m not sure what these outfits will actually look like on, and as you all already know this, how you carry off a look depends a lot on how comfortable/confident you feel in that particular ensemble. So I’ll go try them on and submit my favorite photo in the next entry. And who knows, maybe inspiration will find me and I can surprise you with a completely different look 
.
For some of us, Boxing Day is a secular holiday that falls on the day after Christmas. It may (depending on your employer) buy you an extra day off at work to spend more time with family and friends. Or in my case, with strangers, all of whom afflicted with the same shopping addiction in varying degrees of seriousness. And so this begins the diary of a mad “boxer.”
5:56am: I beat my alarm by 4 minutes but wait in bed to listen to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy as the alarm goes off on my phone. Usually the music puts me in the holiday spirit, but this early on a Sunday morning? Bah humbug!
7:35am: I turn left on Bedford from Wilshire Boulevard to enter the parking structure at Saks Fifth Avenue. Twenty-five minutes till the doors actually open and already there are lines in front of every entrance. I clutch my steering wheel.
7:50am: It’s freezing out here as I queue up at the shortest line I could find. I should have worn those ugly but comfy shoes I wrote about earlier and jeans and a hoodie, but this morning I got into this get up instead because I have an appointment later that requires me to look, well, put together. So I’m in some theory black jeans, black longsleeved tshirt, and Chanel chain link cardigan and captoe mules.
I know, totally inappropriate for power shopping, but heck, I am standing in the middle of Beverly Hills and I even spot a few furs. It’s in the 50s right about now, and that’s basically freezing point for us Angelenos.
Did I say there is a line everywhere I look?
Let’s see what the other gals are wearing, shall we…
8:00am You know all the polite chitchat that was happening in line while we were waiting? All of it goes out the window as soon as the doors fly open, when the women rush in like ants to a piece of candy on the floor. They run, push, pull, shove, shout until they get to whatever item it is that they think they must have to avoid certain death. We are all mad, I tell myself, and some of those women can swing their elbows as effectively as any professional boxer!
I want to run in the opposite direction, but too late; I’m dragged in by the crowd’s momentum, just like on a subway train during rush hour in Tokyo.
9:05am: I’m already done scouring the 3 main floors. Pretty much everything on sale gets another 50% off (except for shoes/accessories), hence, the madness. Gucci and Chanel are excluded from the extra discount, which makes my shopping a lot shorter. I’ve already tried on about 15 items and end up with only the Marni tanks and an Alexander McQueen dress:
I think I’ll get a lot of use out of those fun Marni tanks for layering under cardigans. Here’s how it looks when I try it on later this evening:
9:30am: The shoe department at Saks looks like a disaster area and everything I pick up is not on sale. And I’m not about to stand in line for 3 hours just to pay full price, so these shoes will just go on my wish list for the Spring buys:
9:55am: I hear Banana Republic is also doing a 50% off all sales so I use my Yelp app on my phone to find it in Bev Hills. Turns out it’s just one street over from my favorite corner in this place…hmmm, wonder why :
Anyway, I find a gorgeous, long, black hand-knitted cardigan at Banana for $45. I sortof want to wear it out of the store because it’s still so cold outside!
10:30am: I’ve made it to Century City Shopping Mall to exchange a gift I got from JCrew. Surprisingly I have no trouble finding parking and I’m in and out in under 30 minutes. I pick up a taupe silk shantung embellished top ($21, I kid you not!)…
and a sherpa lined dark green jacket (not $21!) in exchange for the cardigan that was too big:
I kinda want to wear this jacket out of the store as well. It’s much too cold to enjoy this outdoors mall.
Noon: Sheer madness, I tell you, but I’ve just made it to the third mall! Luck must be on my side today because someone gives me her parking space as soon as I pull into the parking garage. I’m here to return a Chanel jacket that was sent to me in two sizes too big. Experience alone tells me that I need to stick to my true size, no matter how great of a magician my alterations lady is. But am I really only here to do a return? Mouhahahahaha.
Let the madness continue in the next entry …
Tags: Alexander McQueen, Banana Republic, Boxing Day, Chanel, Gucci, JCrew, Marni, Saks Fifth Avenue
There have been a lot of stories in the news lately about the downsizing of America, and I don’t mean corporate America. Small revolutions are on the rise around the country, led by women on a collective fashion diet. Blogs, websites, and even parties have popped up like rehab mushrooms for people learning to make do with less. Women (and I suspect some men) are finding liberation in de-cluttering their closets and devoting more time to other endeavors instead of hitting the stores on-line or in person. It’s safe to say consignment stores are the true beneficiaries to this new movement; they now have an endless stream of inventory from people who are clearing out their closets as well as a growing clientele of people who find second-hand items more fitting for their slimmer budgets.
My FIMTSO series was started more or less along the same thinking, as a way for me to maximize what I already have in my closet instead of cramming more stuff inside its bulging walls. I’ve not quite figured out how to go cold turkey with shopping, but since FIMTSOing in February of this year, I’ve definitely learned to buy much less impulsively. It’s made me rethink each buying decision; if I see something I adore but can’t visualize at least 3 different looks with it, I would have to pass. I know a lot of you are already very smart shoppers and way ahead of my learning curve, but I’m a serious addict on a slippery slope journey to rehab. I’ll let you know if I ever kick the habit. You know what they say, once an addict, always an addict. Unfortunately for me, couture is no less potent than meth–but boy oh boy, what a high!
Test Item: theory caramel corduroy pants.
Work Look: For a day/work look, I’m pairing the pants with a dark red Gucci shirt, Valentino slingbacks with mink flowers, and Chanel brown bowler bag.
Weekend Look: For a more casual weekend outing, I’d wear the pants with an army green BR tank under a JCrew dark olive jacket. Dark brown Converse laceless sneakers and dark brown Chanel tote finish the look. I would wear this ensemble to a basketball game or to loiter inside my favorite stores. See what I mean about addiction?
Night Look: Sometimes I wonder if I do have a split personality. A very big part of me loves sequins, and I’m sooo not a sequins kind of girl. But let’s just leave that between my therapist and me. For a night out, I’d up the sparkly quotient with this coral sequined JCrew cardigan over a slinky flesh colored tank. The coppery coral Manolos in an exotic skin and Chanel matte gold 2.55 flap finish my look.
Tags: Chanel, Converse, FIMTSO, Gucci, JCrew, Manolo, theory, Valentino
Confession time. I started the FIMTSO series because I’m supposed to stop buying (shoes especially) in bulk. By bulk I mean more than one pair of a particular style…hence, the reference to Imelda Marcos. But the universe is doing all it can to help me keep Imelda’s tradition alive. In fact, the Louboutin post a few days ago was just a hint of the shoe disease eating its way through my wallet this sale season. Because here’s how it’s manifested itself once more…in the guise of some JCrew sandals:
Umm…if I had a black suede bag you’d also see the same sandal in black suede next to it because yes, I got 3 pairs of the same sandal. What’s with the number 3 anyway! But in my defense, I have to say I got a great deal on these sandals. A week of your Starbucks habit pays for my sandals. OK, maybe two weeks.
But you know, if I should get to the point where I can beat this shoe disease, there’s already someone else in my family to carry on Imelda’s torch. Check out my niece Lil A’s shoe bonanza. Her mom just got her 3 (or 5…the girls in my family don’t like to count) pairs of shoes from Daffy’s. I swear 3 is a magic number around here…
How cute is she tottering around in those open-toed sandals? If you’re 14 months and wobble like that you’re adorable; if you’re my age and wobble like that you’d be called drunk. Here’s a close-up of that delicious skin inside the third pair of shoes:
Tags: Daffy's, FIMTSO, Imelda Marcos, JCrew, Louboutin
